


if i tell myself enough

by flusteredkeith (the_silverdoe), the_silverdoe



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura pov, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Heartbreak, Late Night Conversations, S6 Spoilers, Sleepy Cuddles, big feels, the lotura part is mostly s6 lotura aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 03:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14968487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_silverdoe/pseuds/flusteredkeith, https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_silverdoe/pseuds/the_silverdoe
Summary: They’ve done their duty as paladins — saved the universe, brought Shiro back from the dead, removed all the universe’s threats. Allura should be happy, happier than she’s ever been since Zarkon started this war ten thousand years ago, but—She stares down at shaking hands in her lap, her throat constricted and vision blurred. Although they’ve cleaned up the physical damage and tears that Lotor had caused in space, she did not prepare — could never have prepared herself — for the growing rift that Lotor had torn inside her chest.(Or: Allura learns that some tears take a lot longer to mend.)





	if i tell myself enough

**Author's Note:**

> S6 hit me with so many feels but this lotura-aftermath one felt the most personal. so without further ado, here's a little love letter from me to anyone who's ever gone through a bad heartbreak.
> 
> this was also inspired by [ErinNovelist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/pseuds/ErinNovelist), who wrote [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14942948) right after s6 dropped and gave me some Ideas.
> 
> title taken from ingrid michaelson's "over you" \- truly a beautiful song :)

 

_ Allura? … You doin’ alright? _

**_… What? Oh. Yes. Yes, I’m fine._ **

_ You sure? You still seem a little… distracted. _

**_Yes, I’m sure. Please. Don’t worry about me._ **

_ Oh. Okay. If you say so. _

_ … _

_ Well, hey. If you need anything…  _

 

*

*****

*

*****

*

 

Allura turns over for the umpteenth time that night on the floor of the Blue Lion, her blanket wrapped tightly around her. It’s been two vargas since she’s gone to bed but she’s wide awake, hurting. Coran and Romelle are asleep on either side of her, peaceful and undisturbed in their slumber. She sighs. If only she could seize even a hint of that same ease and tranquility for herself.

The planet they’ve chosen to land on for the night is quiet and still. Tall, moss-infested trees stretch up all around them, providing a thick, green canopy hovering above. There’s nothing out there to harm them here, no chaos or noise to trouble them. Considering their good fortune of stumbling upon this place, there’s no reason Allura shouldn’t find enough peace to lull her to sleep.

She shuts her eyes again, willing herself to sleep. It’s quiet out here, beautiful even, and yet, she can’t shake the terrible ache that continues to pulse inside of her, like invisible hands squeezing her gut and twisting it until the pain becomes too much, spreading to her chest, her arms, her throat—

_ Just breathe. _

Clutching her chest, Allura bites down on her lip and inhales through her nose, then releases her breath in a long, shuddering sigh.

_ Stop thinking about him,  _ she commands herself.  _ He misled you and has done countless terrible things, and now? He has paid the price for it. Don’t think about him. You’re better than that. _

But unbidden into her mind rings the sound of Lotor’s voice, loud and clear as it echoes in her ears.

_ “My feelings for you are true, and I know you have feelings for me as well.” _

Allura turns into her pillow, eyes clamped shut in an attempt to shut his words out. But try as she might, now that the anger has faded somewhat and Allura can finally see beneath it, she’s hit with the force of the reality that her feelings  _ were _ true — are  _ still _ true.

She clenches her teeth, bunches the corner of her blanket into a tight ball in her fist. She wishes she could ram her head into the wall, shake herself up until she can no longer remember the electric feeling still burned onto her skin, the way it crackled with madness under his intent, yellow gaze, his palm gentle on her elbow, the timbre of his voice slow and soft whenever he talked to her, the ghost of a kiss tingling on her lips…

She lets a tear fall. It rolls down the corner of her right eye and into her pillow. Careful not to wake Coran and Romelle —  _ (she can’t let them find her this way)  _ — she takes another slow and deep breath; then, little by little, expels it back out.

_ One. _

_ Two. _

_ Three. _

_ Repeat. _

Once her breathing is a bit more in control, she sits up quietly and rubs her nose.

This isn’t right. They’ve done their duty as paladins — saved the universe, brought Shiro back from the dead, removed all the universe’s threats. Allura should be happy, happier than she’s ever been since Zarkon started this war ten thousand years ago, but—

She stares down at shaking hands in her lap, her throat constricted and vision blurred. Although they’ve cleaned up the physical damage and tears that Lotor had caused in space, she had not prepared — could never have prepared herself — for the growing rift that Lotor had torn inside her chest.

She puts her face in her hands. She can’t sleep like this. Not with this pain threatening to engulf her, choking her up from the inside and twisting her stomach into knots.

Time heals all scars. Isn’t that what her father had said once? Perhaps all she needs now is more time. Perhaps, all she needs is…

_ If you need anything… _

Her eyes widen, the words in her head putting a temporary stop to her tears. And all at once, Lance’s offer from earlier that day come rushing back to her.

_ If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call me, okay? _

Allura looks down at the mice next to her pillow. All four of them are sound asleep, probably blissfully lost in a far off dream. If only she could be so lucky. As it stands, she’d really like some company, but she doesn’t want to wake them.

And besides, she thinks as she quietly throws the covers off of herself and stands up from the floor, sometimes, it’s nice to have direct human interaction, someone with a completely different perspective on life, someone who she knows cares about her in a sweet, genuine way.

When she reaches the pilot seat of the lion, she taps a few buttons on her dashboard and selects into a private line. Pulling her sleeves up over her palm, she dabs at her eyes and sits back in the chair.

The light blinks in silence as the call pends and she imagines it ringing inside the Red Lion. Of course, there’s a slight chance that Lance won’t pick up if he’s too far gone in his sleep to hear it. Something sinks low inside her at the thought, causing her to frown. Lance isn’t obligated to answer her call so there’s no reason for her to feel — whatever it is that’s encroaching upon her — if he doesn’t pick up.

Even still, as the light continues to blink, she closes her eyes and feels herself hope.

“H… hello?”

Her eyes snap open, heartbeat quickening inside her chest.

The screen is up on her dash now and Lance is rubbing his eyes, bathed in the dim red glow illuminating the room behind him. His voice is cottony around the edges, still heavy with sleep.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” she asks quietly, knowing full well that she did.

“Mmm, ’s fine,” he mumbles, resting an arm and then his chin on one of the Red’s gear handles. “What’s up?”

Allura opens her mouth to speak, but now that she’s placed herself in a situation where she has to voice her thoughts out loud to someone else, the wave of emotion that had threatened to engulf her earlier comes rising back in her throat.

“I — I just — I just wanted to—”

She swallows, breathes out, and musters up her voice to try again.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he says softly, straightening up in his seat, suddenly alert at her faltering. “Just take it slow.”

Allura exhales again and manages a smile.

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I… I couldn’t sleep.”

There’s a pause as Lance frowns, trying to read her face.

“Is everything okay?”

An instinctive  _ yes _ almost escapes her lips — a force of habit, the temptation to reassure others surfacing as it always does when she’s asked about her wellbeing. She looks away from the screen and down at her lap. She didn’t call Lance just to tell him a lie. (And more often than not, that’s what her reassurances are when it comes down to it. A lie.)

After a few more ticks, she tilts her chin back up and meets his eyes, lips beginning to tremble as she slowly shakes her head.

Lance leans closer to the screen, rests his elbows on his knees, and props his chin up in his hands, lines of concern etched into his face. Knowing how good he usually is with people, she’s fairly certain he’s probably noticed by now how anguished she looks. However, if he has, he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he asks: “Is there anything I can do?”

The offer is open, gentle, unimposing. Her heart warms at that, though the pain from before still grips her tight. She’s not entirely sure if she’s ready to spill everything out to Lance just yet and she doesn’t want to wake Coran and Romelle by staying on the line for too long either. But in this moment, she also doesn’t want to be alone.

Lance waits patiently for her as Allura sits and thinks. She considers expressing this thought process out loud to him but it seems unnecessarily complicated to waste time discussing it when they’d have to keep their voices to hushed whispers the entire night. All the factors floating around in her mind — her fellow sleeping Alteans, the fact that she has to whisper, the fact that Lance is separated by a screen, the sharp ache in her chest — crowd her thoughts and make it difficult to settle on a sensible decision.

What  _ does _ she want right now?

Before knows what she’s asking, before she can backtrack, she hears the question tumble out of her own lips before she can stop them.

“Can I come over to Red?”

Lance sits up at once, blinking down at his screen.

“What?” he blurts out, though she’s sure he heard her perfectly the first time.

“Shh, keep your voice down,” she hisses, eyes flickering back towards the sleeping forms of Coran and Romelle behind her. Coran mutters something nonsensical in his sleep but otherwise gives no sign that he’s been awakened. She turns back to Lance. “I just asked — could I come over?”

“I — um—” he swallows and glances around his cockpit, looking nervous. “Well, it’s a bit of a mess in here right now, and Kaltenecker is in the back—”

“So is that a no?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. She feels the faint beginnings of laughter bubbling up inside her at his reaction, dulling the ache from before by a little. It isn’t enough to fully eclipse it, but it is enough to make her feel amused for now.

“No! — I mean — yes! Wait—” he strokes his chin and looks up at the ceiling in thought. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter. What I mean is  _ yes _ . You can come over.”

Allura laughs and stands up from her seat.

“Alright then. See you in a tick,” she says before pressing a button on the dashboard and ending the call.

Allura heads back to her makeshift sleeping spot on the floor and stares down it, pursing her lips in contemplation. She’s only going over to talk, so she wouldn’t need to bring anything, would she? She looks down at her nightgown and wonders if she ought to change into her suit. It would be more proper, as she would be completely alone with Lance, but also less comfortable.

It’s too much of a hassle, she eventually decides, ignoring the part of her that’s thinking a little bit too much about the prospect of spending time with Lance in her nightgown, although, it’s not like he hasn’t seen her in it before, nor does she plan on anything happening beyond them talking. In any case, comfort is the key here. So, as quietly as she can, she grabs her pillow and blanket, then tiptoes out of the Blue Lion’s cockpit.

When Allura approaches Red outside, she finds that the lion’s mouth is already open. She stops at the foot of it, feeling suddenly as nervous as Lance had looked.

_ It’s going to be fine, _ she tells herself.  _ We’re just talking. _

Wrapping the blanket around herself and hugging the pillow tighter to her chest, she takes a deep breath and steps in.

The smell and sight of Kaltenecker greets her right outside of the doors to the cockpit. The cow is fast asleep, a big patch of grass lying next to her on the floor. Allura tiptoes past her and the doors slide open upon sensing her presence.

Lance is sitting on top of his mass of blankets and playing around on his tablet when the doors hiss shut behind her. He looks up as she walks in and sets the device down by his pillow.

“Hey,” he greets her.

“Thank you for letting me come by,” Allura says, dropping her pillow to the floor and sitting down across from him.

“Of course,” he nods, eyes shifting to meet hers, careful, hesitant. “What’s up?”

Allura draws the blankets closer around her and hugs her knees to her chest, settling into the comfort of now having Lance by her side. For a few moments, she doesn’t speak, unsure how she can possibly begin to express the pain she’s feeling.

“I don’t know,” she says, even though she does. Now that she’s here, she finds it difficult to start. “Well, I mean, I do. I just…”

“It’s okay, take it slow,” Lance tells her.

She breathes in and tries again.

“We’ve just saved the universe. Everything is back to normal, or at least, as normal as they can be. So… I know I should be happy right now. We defended the universe. We survived and brought Shiro back. We’re all together again and have finally restored peace. But…”

Allura bites her lip, the twisting feeling in her stomach threatening to engulf her again. She takes in a shaky breath and lets it out.

“It still hurts.”

She looks back up at him. Lance is gazing at her with the same sadness she feels mirrored in his eyes, like he really understands and feels her pain. Somehow, the sight of it means more to her than she can bear.

“I’m sorry, Allura,” he says. He doesn’t ask her what she means or what kind of pain she’s referring to. He simply lets it sit between them, bare and raw for both of them to feel. Remembering what the mice had told her about him, guilt fills her now for bringing it up in the first place.

“I’m sorry, Lance,” she sighs, straightening her knees out. She shifts her legs back so that she’s lying on her stomach, folding her arms on top of her pillow and resting her chin upon it. “I am sorry for troubling you with this at all, and for asking you to even be here for me now. It was selfish of me. Maybe we should just go to sleep.”

“It’s no trouble,” he mutters, sinking down onto his stomach in exact imitation of her position. “You’re hurting. What kind of friend and teammate would I be if I refused to be there for you?”

Allura looks down at the floor between them, feeling her cheeks prickle. When he isn’t being his usual confident, boisterous, overly flirtatious self, Lance is always so sweet to her.

“I don’t want to talk about my pain, if it brings you pain, too,” she says, eyes flicking up to meet his.

Lance stares at her for a few ticks, then shrugs. “Eh. I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”

“But—”

“Allura, if you’re hurting, I want to hear about it, okay?” Lance interrupts, his voice loud and firm, though there isn’t any anger in it.

“Well…” she rolls over in her spot on the floor so that she’s gazing up at the ceiling. Perhaps it would help her speak more honestly if she didn’t have to look Lance in the eye. She lets out another long exhale. “The thing is, I thought, that after learning the full, hideous truth about Lotor… that it would make the aftermath of losing him easier to bear.”

Her eyes start to water again. Consciously aware of the fact that Lance is looking intently at her, she lifts an arm and rests it over her forehead in an attempt to lessen how vulnerable and exposed she feels. Nevertheless, Lance remains silent, allowing her space to keep talking.

“But it isn’t easier,” she chokes out, her eyes shutting as she makes a controlled effort to stop the tears from falling. “Even though I know now what a monster he is, I can’t help but — I can’t help but feel that—”

Allura cuts off, her throat constricting. She coughs in an attempt to clear it, but the lump in her throat refuses to go away, lodging itself higher and higher up until she can almost taste it.

“It’s okay,” she hears Lance say. He sounds almost as shaken up as she does and it hurts her to hear it. “Take your time. I’ll be here.”

Allura takes a few gasping breaths, wets the sleeves of her nightgown against her eyes, and tries to explain from another angle.

“Even after all of that, I wanted — I  _ still _ want to — to believe there is good in him.” She smiles in spite of herself. “Is that foolish of me to say?”

“No. No, it’s not,” he assures her.

“I thought I saw something good. Beautiful, even. And I hate to think that maybe it was all in my head. Just an illusion he conjured up to fool us all.” She swallows, wets her lips, and steadies her voice, but the next few words still come out in a hoarse whisper. “And it hurts because it felt so real.”

A long pause follows the end of her sentence, the silence stretching for another few ticks. Then Lance clears his throat.

“If you think you really felt it,” he says, each word sounding like it’s costing him every effort. “Then it probably  _ was _ real.”

Allura thinks about that for a moment. The chemistry between them, those lingering gazes, the way their personalities meshed and molded together, the excitement they both felt when they first entered Oriande and then the quintessence field — she turns the memories and feelings over and over in her mind, testing them, kneading them, rubbing them against the reality she’s experienced outside of herself in hopes she can pick apart what’s real from what’s imagined.

“I don’t know,” she says again, her voice cracked.

“Do you want to believe it was real?” he asks.

_ Does _ she? Even after everything she knows now about Lotor?

“Yes,” she says finally. “Yes, I do.”

“Then it was real,” Lance sighs, as simple as that.

She removes her arm from her face and tilts her head back so she can glance up at him.

“Do you really think it’s that simple?” she asks.

“I mean, yeah, I guess,” he replies, looking back down at her. “They’re your experiences and nothing can ever take that away from you, right?”

“I suppose.”

Allura lays there, waiting for the pain to ebb. If a big part of her heartache came from the notion that perhaps the feelings she’d experienced wasn’t real, then shouldn’t she find comfort in the fact that Lance was reassuring her that it was?

“It still hurts though,” she mutters, turning onto her side and pressing her face into the pillow.

“That makes sense,” he says. “I think things tend to hurt more when they  _ are _ real.”

“I suppose so.” She curls into herself, folding her arms in and tucking her knees to her chest. “I just thought — perhaps if I could make myself understand what and why, I could stop myself from feeling this way. Everything just — hurts.”

“Hey, it's a lot of emotions to process,” Lance says. She hears him shift a bit in his spot, then feels a warm hand on her shoulder. “Sometimes you just gotta let those feelings be.”

“I just…” she sighs heavily, her lips trembling again. “When he made all those rift tears in space — that’s how it feels right now, like he made those same tears in me. And now I — I  just… I wish I could close up the holes inside me, the way we did with those quintessence rifts. Open up a black hole in my chest and just — make it all disappear.”

Lance sighs, his thumb rubbing comforting circles into Allura’s shoulder. “I know, Allura, I know. But if you opened up a black hole inside yourself, you wouldn’t be able to feel anything at all.”

Allura sniffs as more tears continue to wet her pillow. She doesn’t deserve Lance’s kindness right now but here he is offering it anyways. It’s more than she can bear.

Reaching up, she covers his hand with hers and squeezes.

“Hey,” he says soothingly. “It’s gonna be okay. Even though we saved the universe, you still just experienced a big loss. Despite what kind of person Lotor was, you probably need to grieve over it. It’d be more concerning if you didn’t. Don’t minimize that.”

Grief. It’s a feeling she’s used to by now. What’s one more thing to grieve when she’s already lost her world ten thousand years ago?

And yet, as Lance squeezes her hand back, continues to rub comfort into her shoulders, Allura feels inside her the beginnings of something young and new pushing its way through the dirt, like juniberries blooming in the spring. Gratitude fills her heart, and with it, a desire to reciprocate.

Allura pushes herself up onto her elbow, causing Lance to stop his movements and stare down at her with his head tilted, questioning. She fixes her gaze on his lips, contemplates thanking him with her own, but then thinks better of it. Now is not the time. Not when she’s still drowning in grief over another man. That wouldn’t be fair.

Instead, she lowers her forehead and rests it on his shoulder, her fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck. She feels Lance stiffen at first, stunned by the sudden closeness, and then his arms come up to wrap around her, holding her close.

His warmth surrounds her, drawing her in. She can’t explain why; perhaps it is his calm and open presence, or his sweet, unassuming disposition, or maybe just that distinct skin smell at his neck, but something seems to open inside of Allura as she buries her face in his shoulder. It might not be a black hole sucking everything, both the bad and good, into nothingness, but whatever it is, it’s enough for now.

Still, the well of emotions rising up in her finally reaches breaking point. Before she can stop them, they fill to the brim and spill over until she’s sobbing full on into his collarbone with gasping, shaky breaths.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re okay,” he says, his breath warm in her ear as he reaches a hand up to stroke her hair. “Just let it all out.”

Allura can’t even find it in her to respond to him. The sobs rip from her throat as she clings onto Lance, each cry raising in pitch as the tears continue to flow.

They stay like this for few ticks, doboshes, Lance rubbing her back and her crying uncontrollably. When the tears finally begin to die down, Allura keeps her cheek pressed against his chest, her hand bunching up the front of his sleep shirt as she regains a steady control of her breathing.

“It’s okay,” he whispers again, squeezing her shoulders and resting his chin above her head. “You’re okay. You’re going to be fine.”

She nods, finding herself unable to speak now that she feels like she’s emotionally vomited everywhere. And even if she wanted to, her throat feels too garbled and thick from all the crying to form sensible words.

“You okay to go back and sleep?” Lance asks, backing away just enough so he can gaze down at her face.

Allura nods, but makes no move to let go of him.

“Want me to take you back to your lion?” he offers, untangling his arms from hers. He makes to get up from where they’re seated on the floor and it takes a tick for Allura to realize what he means. Her hand shoots out and grabs onto his wrist. She isn’t ready for him to leave her alone yet.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, looking down at her.

Allura shakes her head vigorously and pulls him back down to the floor with her. He kneels beside her, face inches away from hers, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

He twists his lips in thought and looks down at the floor at her pillow, then flicks his eyes back onto hers, uncertain. “Did you want to stay?”

She sighs, feeling slightly guilty, and nods.

“Okay. Let’s stay,” Lance says.

Allura pulls her pillow forward until it’s slotted next to Lance’s then lies down on her side facing his direction. Grabbing her blanket, he covers her with it, then settles under his own and lays his head on his pillow, facing her.

“Is this okay?” he asks, about half an arm’s length away.

Allura hesitates for a moment, then gently pushes Lance over until he’s lying on his back. Wiggling underneath his blanket, she scoots herself closer until her head is resting against his chest, feeling a short, intake of breath from Lance as she wraps an arm around his torso.

“Is this okay?” she repeats the question back, her words barely a small whisper in the dark.

He wraps an arm around her and shifts himself slightly to get more comfortable.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, voice thick and heavy. “This is okay.”

Allura smiles at that and closes her eyes.

“Good night, Lance,” she whispers.

“Sleep tight, Princess.”

Her eyes will be swollen and puffy in the morning, she knows. And while the pain inside her hasn’t fully gone away yet, will probably not go away for a long while, as she snuggles closer to Lance and feels her heart brimming with his kindness, she thinks she can start to feel the torn rifts inside her slowly heal.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hello to me on [tumblr](https://flusteredkeith.tumblr.com) and/or [twitter](https://twitter.com/flusteredkeith)!


End file.
